Psychological Control

"Let go... ah! ...Okay, okay, I'll put it on myself..."

I had only just emerged from the bathroom when I opened the door and ran into David, who had been waiting for me for a long time, and was twisted and pinned back against the sink in two or three strokes. It was because I had put on the robe I had brought with me, not the bloodstained dress he had given me.

David loosened his grip on me because I begged for mercy, but the man remained stubbornly standing there, obviously wanting to see me put it on with his own eyes.

"Mike... even if you want me to wear a woman's dress..." with a complicated expression I picked up the nightgown whose owner had been dead for who knows how many days, "but next time could you not make it so disgustingly stained with someone else's blood ..."

David stood in the doorway of the bathroom with his arms around me, clearly not letting me out until I changed into it. I had no choice but to turn around and take off my robe in front of him.

It was an incredibly natural move, but I was suddenly embarrassed when I felt a substantial gaze fall on my panty-less focus. I hadn't seen him take any particular interest in me when we used to change backstage at the dance company every day.

I was furious at the sight of him and I sped up my change into the deadly dress. The moment I put it on, the faint smell of blood enveloped my body.

A normal person would have subconsciously recoiled at the smell of blood, but Brian's senses in my body were awakened by the rare smell of human blood, as if I had been given a psychedelic drug.

"Mmmm...!" With a wobble I was grabbed from behind by David, one of his arms wrapped around mine so I couldn't move, and one hand brushing up against the jaw of my cheek. I couldn't help but grunt in pain.

"Looking at you in the mirror, I don't know why it always makes me picture you as a woman. Or the woman most to my liking. Maybe you should regret going to that modeling contest..." David locked eyes with me from the mirror and restrained me in his arms like a control freak.

I had to admit that David really wasn't lying. I didn't have very well-defined features to begin with, and I really did look a bit like a short-haired woman in this deadly nightgown. But even though my body looked slim, we both knew that I actually had fast, well-defined muscles under the dress.

"You know full well that I'm not a woman, don't kid yourself, Mike." The part of me that was Brian awoke at the smell of blood, my heart count rose and the words that came out were no longer going around from my head three times before they came out, they started to become uncontrollable.

I broke out of his grip with one hand and took David's hand that was stroking my cheek, guiding him down my body as if I had performed it a thousand times on stage with such skill. Then I grabbed his hand and pressed it there underneath me.

"Heh, you're really unforgiving, Brian." David seemed to get a little angry at this move on my part as his arms around me tightened and his hand pressing there gave me an even harder grip.

"AHHHH!!!" I couldn't stop padding upwards in pain, "Let go! Mike..."

"Isn't that what you wanted? Hmm? ...I'd really like to castrate you, but unfortunately I'm afraid I'd accidentally kill you. I'd have a heart for you, Brian." I could tell by David's expression in the mirror that he was enjoying torturing me, and our anxious glances in the mirror seemed to turn him on even more.

"I think you're one of my rare close friends, which is why I've resisted killing you outright. It's only right that you behave yourself, Brian." David finally released his grip on my vital parts and instead played with the strands of hair that had fallen to my ears from the struggle.

David's murderous intent was fully picked up by Brian's sensitive senses, and how could I, who was so similar to David, really be intimidated by such an irritation and flinch?

It was just the uncontrollable rise of murderous intent in me, but I knew that there was no way I could outwit my opponent anyway with David being so cautious and on my guard for so long.

Maybe I shouldn't have shunned the FBI so much in the first place. I regret it now beyond measure. Who would have thought that in the blink of an eye, I would be unlucky enough to become a victim again.

I told myself that this time I would have to wait for an opportunity, for a chance to get the FBI's attention. If the FBI was continuing to monitor my online movements, then that might be the only breakthrough point. This time I wouldn't fail again, I didn't believe that God would let me die again under similar karma after giving me another chance to live.

Lying on the only double bed in the room, my hands and both ankles were fastened by David with not-too-intrusive but very real plastic clasps that could not be easily broken off with nails and teeth. A much wiser choice than the bald one in my last life.

After watching David come in from the shower, he helped me sit back on the bed and got out the hairdryer. Plugging it in, the hairdryer whined with hot air onto my head and waited to dry the ends of my almost dry hair as well before he started blowing his own hair.

"You know it's really hard for a young man my age to go a whole day without playing on his phone..." I relaxed against the bed, watching my murderer "best friend" whimpering on his hair next to me.

"What did you say?" David asked, stopping the hair dryer.

"I'd like to use my electronic devices..." I said bitterly, repeating the same thing as the previous sentence, but more directly.

David gave me a snorting look and said, "Brian the little internet worm, I'll play with you when I'm done blowing my head off. Do you know the password to the wifi account here?"

I shook my head honestly.

"Oh, that's for sure. Because I lost the little note the landlord posted on the dining room table after I wrote it down." David added cheerfully before turning on the blowtorch again.

Editing his video diary and uploading it to the oil pipe with a serial killer the FBI was hunting was such a unique experience that no one else would ever want to have in their lifetime. In particular, the video included a glimpse of the interior shot by David himself, as my hands and feet were snapped up by him with adhesive clasps.

"What are you doing?" David swept me up against the bed and watched as I dragged the footage from the camera one by one into the video editing software.

"Editing the video." I replied with a blank face.

"So what are you getting this video for?" David rubbed his hand through my freshly washed, slightly damp so soft to the touch hair.

"Uploading it to the oil pipe to keep the exposure. I'm going to keep selling my sex to make a living, I thought you knew that?" I looked at the man beside me who seemed to have fully recovered into Mike.

David stared at me for half a second without moving his eyes and said, "So the bit I filmed for you is going to be added in? I did talk to you during the shoot."

"Don't worry, I'll do away with the video soundtrack and put it on in the background for that bit." I said seemingly matter-of-factly, not showing any sign of weakness at all.

In fact, my palms were slightly sweaty at this point. Because I did intend to tamper with the part David was filming so that the FBI monitoring my computer would find out about me in time.

But I also knew there was no way David wouldn't notice the part of the video he shot that left his voice behind. So I did add background music to that clip and gave him a check.

But what he didn't know was that while I put the background music on the video, I pretended to accidentally record the sound of my fingers tapping on the keyboard. Because I was typing with difficulty with my trapped hands, the one, two, three long, two short taps on the keyboard did not register with him.

The sound of my seemingly mis-recorded keyboard delivered the words help, kill and hold in the most superficial form of Morse code. And it was repeated three times.

The plan to use Morse code to convey the message was something I had tried to apply when I had inadvertently recalled, while David was in the shower earlier, the way the prisoner had passed messages to his accomplice when I had met Neil Caffrey assisting the FBI in the capture.

David hadn't noticed anything and took my penlight from me once the video was uploaded. "Time for bed, smart Brian."

Sometimes I really hated how he always brought some adjective with him when he called me by my name. That sounded like it filled me with goosebumps, and I guess I'd be psyching myself up for that kind of name calling in the future.

I rubbed myself against the bed and lay down, turning to leave my back to David. Then I felt him lie down too, putting his arm around my waist and snuffling the back of my neck.

We both froze in the darkness for I don't know how long, but eventually it was me who drifted off into sleep first, blurred by the day's travels.

In the morning, I awoke to a choking sensation and a heavy pressure. I opened my eyes to the blinding sunlight of the window and the shadowed outline of David's deep features, his hands around my neck, riding my body.

"Cough...cough..." I choked out, raising my hands to pull him away before I realised with a start that my hands had been fastened with adhesive clasps while I slept.

David saw that I was awake, but released his own hands and rolled over off me. I struggled to get up to see that he was already all ready to go.

"Is that how you wake people up?" My voice was hoarse with mockery and I could feel the wound on my neck that had healed last night, being torn open again.

David raised an eyebrow seemingly in a good mood as he returned pleasantly, "No, that's how I let people sleep forever." With that, he pulled a folding knife from the sandy boots on his feet and walked over to me yanking up my hands to cut the glue buckles, then both ankles.

I rubbed my own wrists and got up from the bed, taking off the chiffon nightgown I was wearing as soon as I could in front of him. "I'm going to the supermarket today to buy some everyday items, do you want to tag along?"

David bent down and picked up the dead dress I had casually thrown on the floor and rightfully returned, "Of course. It's about time I looked for my next prey, if you don't mind."

Of course I did! Bloody murderer...

I nodded expressionlessly, changed into a dark hoodie with black chinos that I didn't usually wear under his watchful eye, and went to wash up again. I tried to dress as inconspicuously as possible, and put on a mask before I left the house.

It was best to dress as suspiciously as possible, and it was best if I could be called in by the patrol.

At the supermarket, I walked out with two large bags of stuff, David behind me with a black face carrying a dozen toilet papers and various vegetables and fruits. Then we saw David's next target.

A redheaded woman, who had just locked her car and was striding towards the supermarket, cursing the boy who was trotting behind her. It appeared to be her son, and she called him a mourner and a dragger.

The woman, dressed as a career woman, was holding a mobile phone that appeared to have just ended its call and had not yet gone black. Then the phone rang, and she picked it up, her expression changing instantly to a full smile, and the tone in which she cursed the boy became gentle.

She responded affectionately to the person on the phone and I heard her address the other person as darling and then mention the kid's name, Tommy.

"Honey, I'm taking Tommy to the supermarket. Well, it's no trouble. . how come? Your son is going to be my son too."

As she passed us, she saw David in a tight white t-shirt that didn't hide his figure and winked at him. The child behind her, panting with tears in her eyes, ran past us.

I knew David was locked on target, and even though I could tell the woman's red hair was actually dyed, the instant change in the man's scent behind me let me know that he was angry.

Why?

I had never analysed David's deep psychology before, and because he used to hide it so well as Mike, this was the first time I'd seen him show his true outwardly leaking emotions.

Maybe...that boy was once the epitome of his childhood? ...This is the most straightforward and simple inference, as the oppression of the mother pushes the otherwise young sociopathic personality to extremes. Many victims of serial killers are essentially the same types who once inflicted harm on them.

There are many more vengeful serial killers than missionary serial killers, and apart from some being sexually extreme, most of the rest are the result of childhood shadows.

I didn't spell out my suspicions; it was the easiest way to anger David. It was better to be a silent lamb if I didn't want to die yet.

Sitting in the car, David drove. He watched the supermarket exit without a word, clearly intending to have a stalking session now. I couldn't very well remind him that we had some frozen meat in the boot of the car that we needed to take home and freeze.

I sat in the passenger seat and took out the magazine I'd bought, as David now had my mobile phone and the keys to my room.